I first saw THE MUTATIONS in the early 1970s. Imagine an updated color version of Tod Browning’s FREAKS that borrows its principal plot device from H. G. Wells’ THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Add more than a touch of David Cronenberg style body horror (three years before Cronenberg’s first movie) then combine it with the unmistakable look of the British horror films of the time and that will give you some idea of this unique and periodically disturbing film.
I had not yet seen the Tod Browning film so the idea of sympathetic carnival oddities was new to me. I did, however, know the plot of DR MOREAU from the 1932 film ISLAND OF LOST SOULS with Charles Laughton, one of the creepiest films to come out of the 1930s.
Donald Pleasance nicely underplays the quintessential mad doctor who wishes to create a race of biologically superior life forms that combines elements of both plants and animals. The experiments that don’t quite work out wind up as sideshow attractions at a local carnival headed up by a pre-DOCTOR WHO Tom Baker looking for all the world like a tall version of John Hurt’s ELEPHANT MAN and dwarf actor Michael Dunn only a few years removed from THE WILD WILD WEST.
The rest of the cast of young British talent and a somewhat stiff hero played by Brad Harris fufill their roles in the necessary manner for this type of film which is basically a B movie with a pedigree. That pedigree is director Jack Cardiff, one of the world’s greatest cinematographers and an occasional director of fascinating films (THE LONG SHIPS, DARK OF THE SUN, SONS AND LOVERS). His knack for interesting visuals makes this movie a hard one to forget.
The Capsule Critic 